Abstract: A number of experimental studies based on domain-specific tasks have evaluated the efficiency of navigation techniques for searching multi-scale worlds. The discrepancies among their results call for a more generic framework similar in spirit to Fitts' reciprocal pointing task, but adapted to a task that significantly differs from pure pointing. We introduce such a framework based on an abstract task and evaluate how four multi-scale navigation techniques perform in one particular multi-scale world configuration. Experimental findings indicate that, in this context, pan & zoom combined with an overview is the most efficient technique of all four, and that focus + context techniques perform better than classical pan & zoom. We relate these findings to more realistic situations, discuss their applicability, and how the framework can be used to cover a broad range of situations.